U.S declares ISIS action in Iraq, Syria genocide

Secretary of State, John Kerry, said yesterday that the United States (U.S.) has determined that ISIS’ action against the Yazidis and other minority groups in Iraq and Syria constitutes genocide.

“My purpose here today is to assert in my judgment, (ISIS) is responsible for genocide against groups in areas under its control including Yazidis, Christians and Shiite Muslims,” he said, during a news conference at the State Department.

Kerry said in 2014, ISIS trapped Yazidis killed them, enslaved thousands of Yazidi women and girls “selling them at auction, raping them at will and destroying the communities in which they had lived for countless generations,” executed Christians “solely for their faith” and also “forced Christian women and girls into slavery.”

“Without our intervention, it is clear that those people would have been slaughtered,” he said.